Electronic Drum Kits? Options

[Spock]

Anyone know anything about an affordable good one, have a strong opinion on one? I would like to have one at my house for low volume jamming. Something that will control the sound packs I have for EZ Drummer in Logic. I would prefer to keep it under $1,000 if possible as I am not a drummer; however my son is and I have a couple of friends that are.

I was looking at the Alesis DM 10 Studio, but this unit is at the top of my budget. This would not be used to replace a real drum set, but just give an alternative to practice, allow me to play with someone at my house, use for recording and could be integrated into a real drum set for triggering if need be.

I love all the pads and symbols this unit has.

Is this too much? I wouldn't mind learning a few things on the drums, but it is really not my passion.

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

It looks awesome! I have no experience with this but it would make possible to do a rehearsal at my apartment with the full band.

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[Spock]

I ended up getting the Alesis DM8 Pro. Smaller than the big kit, but bigger than the small one, it's expandable and can utilize a double kick pedal.


Anxious to see what low volume practice is like. It will make high volume practice that much funner to I think. We can get tight at low volume and then turn it out loud.

And, practice can be captured direct into Logic. So Excited!

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This post has been edited by Spock: Jun 22 2013, 01:53 AM

[dcz702]

I ended up getting the Alesis DM8 Pro. Smaller than the big kit, but bigger than the small one, it's expandable and can utilize a double kick pedal.


Anxious to see what low volume practice is like. It will make high volume practice that much funner to I think. We can get tight at low volume and then turn it out loud.

And, practice can be captured direct into Logic. So Excited!

Cool man I want v drums to! I keep looking at them I love the way you can use them for triggers for ez drummer, they sound real and with a good set of monitors would be AWSOME for jammin a full band. This Alesis trigger io seems to make things easier to use drums as part of your recording set up to. How bout A tour of your kit and maybe some samples, I'm real curious bout your new drums.

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This post has been edited by dcz702: Jun 22 2013, 03:48 AM

[Spock]

Sure will, I haven't gotten it in yet, I purchased it online from Sweetwater - but here is a review and a video. The drum sounds that come with the brain are pretty good as a stand alone, but I am so gung ho on EZ Drummer tones - specifically the Metal Heads kit.

The DM8 has been discontinued, and I was able to find 1 model from Sweetwater which had been returned - so they knocked $100 off, said I could return it if I didn't like it for 30 days, and it has a 2 year warranty from Sweetwater and a 1 year from Alesis, so I went ahead and got it. There were some MD8 Studio kits on Ebay which were less too though. The studio kits have the same brain, but the pads are smaller and don't utilize the real-feel drum heads. It's more compact, and for the space I have available, I probably should have gone with, but whenever I get something like this, I always tend to go overboard - my over-compulsive disorder.


The kit comes with everything you need right out of the box with the exception of a drum throne and a kick pedal. I found this to be a little disappointing especially for the beginner who wants to have everything they need in one package. For intermediate to advanced drummers, this may not matter because you already own those things. In most cases drummers out there probably own several thrones and pedals, so not having an included pedal and throne may be exactly what you need.

I found the pads and cymbals to be very responsive to different types of stick hits. The ability to change the sensitivity of every pad is a great feature. It takes some experimenting to see where exactly you want the sensitivity but once you find that sweet spot you get a lot of the DM8 Pro.

The one thing I did find rather frustrating was the finickiness of the rack. While it is incredibly sturdy for a plastic rack, I had problems when moving the kit around. It began to collapse in on itself and I had to readjust all the rack pieces. The best way to fix this is make sure all of your lugs and knobs are tight and try to avoid mashing the kit together for storage. This is best way to be sure that your rack will have continued life and wont fall on top of you while you are playing.

No matter what level of skill you are at this is still a great kit for helping you get better. Perhaps you just need a simple click to go through rudiments, maybe you want to start recording mixes onto a DAW, or if your like me, you just want to plug in your iPod and rock out. No matter what your desire, the Alesis DM8 Pro can accommodate. Thanks again to Alex Selph for jamming on the kit for us. I’ll see all of you at your next gig.

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This post has been edited by Spock: Jun 22 2013, 08:42 AM

[Todd Simpson]

Nice set Just step down to the next one in the range if you like and save some cake. Or start at the bottom of the range and save more. But for the money that's a really spiff set.

Todd

Anyone know anything about an affordable good one, have a strong opinion on one? I would like to have one at my house for low volume jamming. Something that will control the sound packs I have for EZ Drummer in Logic. I would prefer to keep it under $1,000 if possible as I am not a drummer; however my son is and I have a couple of friends that are.

I was looking at the Alesis DM 10 Studio, but this unit is at the top of my budget. This would not be used to replace a real drum set, but just give an alternative to practice, allow me to play with someone at my house, use for recording and could be integrated into a real drum set for triggering if need be.

I love all the pads and symbols this unit has.

Is this too much? I wouldn't mind learning a few things on the drums, but it is really not my passion.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

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[Spock]

Just got it in today and hooked it up to Logic - it controls EZDrummer perfectly! I LOVE IT!!!

My son is in there now getting acquainted with it, I'll do a recording and post it here in the next few days.

Usually I suffer massive buyers remorse for this sort of thing, but not today.

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Just got it in today and hooked it up to Logic - it controls EZDrummer perfectly! I LOVE IT!!!

My son is in there now getting acquainted with it, I'll do a recording and post it here in the next few days.

Usually I suffer massive buyers remorse for this sort of thing, but not today.

Awesome Congrats on your purchase mate I was thinking to recommend one of the Millenium sets - I know they are cheap and you can do a decent job with them.. Have you tried those?

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[Bogdan Radovic]

Congratulations on getting e-drums set!

We use electronic drums set in our band a lot for "silent rehearsals" (we play through a mixer and everyone has their own headphones) as well as recording. I think using a high quality VST drums along with real drummer played track (via electronic drums) make the track sound extremely realistic and good sounding.

I think that with so much cool drums VSTs nowadays, one don't necessarily have to get a top end electronic drum set as even the cheaper ones can connect well to the computer and use it as a "brain" and get sound from there.

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[Spock]

No doubt Bogdan - I am VERY PLEASED with this new set. We finally have it all set up and earlier this week had a couple friends come over and we played around.

We didn't use headphones and it wasn't that loud at all - my wife comfortably watched TV a couple rooms over and she said we didn't disturb her at all.

I got a Focusrite 8i6 in order to run multiple inputs into logic on separate tracks, however these drums have really good built in kits in the brain - but for this practice I just ran it USB and had them controlling easy drummer.

I am so happy with this, keeps me from traveling 15 miles to play with a group, at low volume too!

I also brought my Marshall amp home and am running it direct. My tone isn't near as good as Ben's yet, but hopefully one day I figure out how to get everything dialed in good.

Here's a tune we practiced this week using the drums and the Marshall JVM410 direct, the bass utilized PodFarm 2.5 but still went in on the Focusrite along with the Marshall...

Obviously the drums are a dash limited, only being a 5 set with a high hat and 2 other cymbals - but regardless, it's exactly everything I hoped it would be...

https://soundcloud.com/lllspocklll/song-1-remix

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This post has been edited by Spock: Jul 13 2013, 10:08 PM